The Best Way to Load Your Dishwasher Is Buried In Its Manual

People fight over the best way to load the dishwasher. Forks with tines up or down, pots on the top or bottom—luckily, it’s all meaningless. Your specific model probably has a “right way,” and it’s buried in the back of its owner’s manual.

Checking the user manual seems like a no-brainer, but with something as easy to use (or that was pre-installed when you moved in) as a dishwasher, you may have never seen it, much less read it yourself. For example, Kenmore’s manual shows you how to use the angled sides on the top rack to prevent those pools of standing water on the tops of your coffee mugs, and the best way to space out dishes on the bottom rack to make sure each one gets properly washed. If you no longer have your dishwasher manual, you can always Google the brand and model number to find a digital version, someone’s definitely scanned it, or the official one may still be available as a PDF from the manufacturer’s site.